Bionics is a comprehensive “boundary science” that has been evolving since the 1960's, in which life science and engineering technique are integrated together. Machines, instruments, constructions and processes have been improved by learning, simulating, copying or repeating structures, functions, working principles and control mechanisms of a biosystem. The subject of biomimetic robots was created because it was realized that organisms had high rationality and progressiveness in respects of their structure, function execution, information processing, environmental adaptation, autonomous learning as a result of long-term natural evolution. The development of biomimetic robots was derived from the pursuit of non-structural and unknown working environments, a complicated, skillful and high-difficulty work tasks, and a goal for high accuracy, high flexibility, high reliability and high intelligence.
Bionics has also applied in the toy industry, including for toy fish. An example is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,909,868. However, this toy fish utilizes complex mechanics to convert the rotary motion of a motor into oscillating motion of the tail fin of the fish. This mechanism may be prone to failure and/or complexities of assembly due to the large number of parts required to affect the motion of the tail fin. U.S. Pat. No. 2,909,868 also does not describe a manner by which the toy may change direction without direct input from a person or external object nor how a toy can likewise be made to descend in a body of water.